‘Guiding sister’ of VASH eases man’s loss of his wife
By Rosemarie Bernardo, Honolulu Star-Bulletin – November 8, 2007
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Kathleen Aure was close to retiring as vice president and assistant general counsel for Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. She and her husband were taking lessors last July at Maunalua Bay so that could take scuba-diving trips together.
Aure signaled to her instructor that she lacked air and headed toward the boat. Her instructor followed her. While at the boat’s ladder, she went limp after her weight belt was removed, said her husband, Jack Marks, during a phone interview from Oakland, Calif.
Marks and others on the boat administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation before an ambulance arrived. “She never regained consciousness,” Marks said.
She was taken to Straub Clinic & Hospital, where doctors pronounced the 61-year old Aure dead.
Devasted, Marks said he did not know where to go or what to do after his wife of 28 years unexpectedly died. Someone at the hospital referred him to the Visitors Aloha Society of Hawaii.
Executive Director Jessica Lani Rich immediately stepped in and provided moral support to Marks. She took him to her office, where she and her staff helped contact relatives on the mainland.
Rich also accompanied him to the coroner’s office and comforted him when he picked up his wife’s ashes from a funeral parlor. Marks said he could not have gone through the process without Rich and her staff.
“She was like a guiding sister.” Marks said.